"Until I was
twelve-thirteen years old, I didn't feel myself as an adopted child, because my
grandparents didn't have other children, and they had surrounded me with tender
love, but later I heard about it from our neighbors' children, and it continued
till the 1950s.
My brother Soukias Minassian found me, so listen how he did that.
The eldest among us was that brother of mine and two sisters. I was one
year old when in 1915 we were exiled from the Gyulzetkan village of Alashkert.
After coming out of the village at a distance of 1 km, they had stopped our
caravan, tied my father to a tree and killed him in front of the eyes of the people.
Then they ordered my mother: "Take your four children and go!"
The three of them were going on foot, I was on my mother's arms.We had walked for three months and a half until we reached Bayazet, Igdir, Edjmiadzin
and then the yard of St. Sargis Church. The yard was full of people
then. Everywhere there were sick people and corpses. There was a special cart,
which collected the corpses and took them away. In those days, the place called Ghantar was beyond the St.
Sargis Church .. The exiled children, among them my
brother and sisters, used to go there to get some bread. On our long journey,
mother had suffered a lot, for she had been suckling me, but 12-13 days after arriving in Yerevan my mother felt ill, and I cried.My brother Soukias Minassian found me, so listen how he did that.
A husband and wife, who had no children used to come the church-yard every day and saw my mother's state. The next day they came again and saw that my mother had died, and the child was crying on her breast. At that moment my brother returned from Ghantar. They said: "We're taking this child to Kond."
When brother became sixteen years old, he began thinking about his sisters. The Americans had opened an orphanage and they accommodated my sisters there. Later, they transferred the orphans of that orphanage to America. He wrote to a few cities, trying to find his sisters, but he couldn't. He began thinking about me, and remembered that, when he was ten years old, a man and a woman had taken his brother to Kond.
At that time I was in Ashtarak, constructing the Xeres wine factory. Before my brother found me, a man had approached me and said: "One of these days I'll come to you, for I'm looking for my brother."
"Are you sure?" I said.
After seven or eight days I was sitting in my office, when a man and a woman came in. The woman came in and sat down, but the man didn't. He came and stood behind my shoulder. The woman began to tell. Meanwhile, the husband standing beside me wanted to touch me. He was born in 1904. The woman was telling details, while the husband looked much exited. The conversation lasted for an hour and a half, and it turned out that the man was my brother.
Finally, they asked my opinion. I told: "I must speak with my mother, who has looked after me, only then I can give you an answer." But in two days i was called to Yerevan for a session. I had two hours; I had close friends: I went to my friend Gerassim. for advice. He got up from his place, hugged me and said: "Where does he live?"
I came out. My friend found my brother and told him everything. After the session I went home. My father had already passed away then , only my mother was alive. I asked my wife about them. My mother said: "Calm down, Gurgen djan, until now I had one son, now I have two."
At that moment my brother and his wife came in; we lay the table and began to celebrate the joyful occasion. My grandma's name was Dsovinar. Mother's name was Shoghakn, my wife's name is Yevgenia and my children are Laura, Ara, Abgar and Gagik.
The cause of all those disasters were the Turks, the Genocide they organized and fulfilled. Alashkert also fell a victim to the calamity.
Thus, up to the end of my life I shall keep my saint father Abgar Mouradian's name and surname, for he saved my live. I and my brother, however hard we tried to remember our own mother's name, we couldn't, because both of us were too young."
